Here is a picture of my birthday cake - oh, it is SO good! I just wish my family didn't like it quite as much as I do! I guess I should be thankful I only have 4 children and not 14, though - fewer people to share with.
My stress levels have gone down somewhat. It helped that today Paul got his annual performance bonus from Lozier. It's just shy of what it was last year and the timing is so good for us, financially. It will help pay our bills this next pay period, since his regular pay will be quite decreased with the minimal hours he's been getting lately. They are hoping to start AC checks soon which will give all the service guys work.
And I got more good news. A piece I wrote last week for FaithWriters got "Highly Commended" again. I wasn't expecting that. I had some difficulty writing it because I was deliberately stretching myself. My "comfort" zone is writing devotionals. This time I did more of a fictionalized - but not really - story from the Bible and then went into the devotional part. Well, you'll have to read it to see what I'm talking about. It was hard because I didn't want to deviate from the Scriptures, but yet there is always room to play around with Bible stories, adding emotions and conversations and such that don't necessarily come through just reading the text. So I finally sent it in and honestly forgot all about it - until we got home from our weekend trip and I found all these reviews praising my piece! Wow! So - another 4th place win - not too bad, I guess!
Oh, I found out something last week that I didn't know. In addition to my partial basement, I am also getting an add-on room to the back of my house! I did not realize this was part of Paul's master plan. He is extending the house another 4 feet off the back. Eventually, he wants to bump the kitchen out into that 4 foot addition, which would, obviously, give us a bigger kitchen. In the meantime, though, I will have a sizable place for storage. The steps leading to the new basement will be out there, which will be accessible through our mudroom. So, I am really excited about that! The only "down" thing is that I am losing my only kitchen window. It will be there, but the view will be gone since there will now be a wall on the other side of it. My walls are navy so I'm thinking the kitchen will come off as an even darker room. When we re-do the kitchen, then I will get my window back (it's going to be at the corner of the house) but that will be years from now.
My visit with our teacher went well. She never asks to see the boys' schoolwork, ever. We just sit and talk about all kinds of things. Then I write her a check for $25 and don't see her again for months. It works for me! She has the attitude (which I appreciate) that "you know what you're doing, I'm here if you need me, but I'm not going to bug you." She always says my chaotic household makes her feel right at home. I hope so. Today Sam came to me while I visited with her, complaining that he was wet. He had on cloth training pants with plastic pants over the top. So I told him to get a pull-up and bring it to me, which he did. When I removed his pants, urine went flying all over and splashed onto the teacher's shoes. She just laughed. I feel so gross today - paint covered and now urine splashed. Guess I should mop my kitchen floor, too...
I do have some more to cover, but right now I need to get supper going and put another coat of paint on. I'd love to have that wall finished before the boys have to go to bed. Oh, and to David's relief, the paint is drying darker than it went on, so it is closer to Cowboy Blue!
No comments:
Post a Comment